Well, my mag mount has survived 3 roll overs and never came off of the vehicle. To each their own but I've been in the 2way radio business for 33 years and have seen police cars with mag mount antennas and have never heard of them being a danger.

I don't care if my paint gets scratched, I'll just squirt more rustoleum on it.

I also don't care if I can't talk to Timbucktoo and back so a little bit of loss isn't a problem. I just prefer to not drill holes in the roof and have something I can easily move out of the way when I'm working on stuff.

I agree that mag mounts will scratch your vehicle, DAMHIK. There is a place for everything and everything has it its place. If you don't have the money for two hard mount antennas but want to swap radios ON a regular basis a mag mount is one of the few options out there.

I would love to have my 4runner hard mounted and most likely will in the future but when I went to HRO and dropped 6 bills it was a better deal for me to get the mag mount. I wanted it as high as I could and the tire carrier was not build yet so a mag mount it was.

As the article stated a mag mount COULD become a missile but if the impact is that hard for the magnet to come loose AND break the coax I think there are more serious items to worry about. I am not saying it doesn't matter or is a good thing but we do have to look at the odds. Ham radios use mag mounts as do many CB antennas, now how many do you think have been sold to the public? And from all those numbers there has been one confirmed death and one possible? Unfortunately those are pretty good odds.

There is hazard in everything we do in live. I was racing my motorcycle and broke my neck and back. Walked away from it without a scratch and am fine. Next room over was a secretary who stepped of the bus on 16th street mall and stepped in a pothole breaking her neck, she is now a quadriplegic for live. Who here was doing the most hazardous thing? Everything carries an inherent danger with it, if we can limit it great but we have to call it good at some point.

side note on mag antenna. I originally put mine on the hood like most and if fell off while driving I-70 scratched my paint,

Now it sits on the front corner of my ARB. Has never moved other than when I hit the antenna on a bush or tree. It also works nice as a corner marker like on a snow plow blade. Someday I might get a better CB antenna and drill a hole for it there. But for now I'm happy with the mag mount as I hope to toss the CB anyway. (My HAM antenna is on my rear hatch like most with 80's)

This is a very highly regarded HT, but is discontinued. Its replacement, the FT-250R just very slightly improves it at the same price. However for a few dollars more I would suggest looking at the FT-270R (the VX-170 replacement), which has a bigger display and has better waterproofing. Either way, both are very close derivatives of Vertex commercial rigs, so in a pinch could be used to drive nails or as a wheel chock.